


Notes

by serenbach



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:08:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenbach/pseuds/serenbach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While helping James move house, Lewis finds something unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cactusonastair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactusonastair/gifts).



He hadn’t been snooping, exactly, but he was a copper after all and he tended to notice the important details.

He’d been helping James move, despite James’s clear if never directly stated concern about his back. Once Robbie had insisted that it was only fair, however, James had given in (even if he reserved the right to say ’I told you so’).

They had almost finished clearing out his flat. James was loading one of the last boxes into the car, when the bottom of the cardboard box Robbie had picked up burst open, scattering its contents all over the floor.

Sighing to himself, he knelt to gather them up, ignoring the twinge in his spine that suggested that James might have had a point. Fortunately, the box had only contained reams of paper, nothing that could break or spill.

He collected it all together; sheet music, magazine articles, print-offs of various topics that didn’t really interest him but made him marvel once again at all the different things his sergeant knew. He would have bundled it all together and taped the box back up without paying too much attention if he hadn’t noticed a sheaf of paper covered in his own handwriting. 

He picked it up and scanned the contents curiously. It wasn’t anything much, a note reminding James to cross-check a suspect’s number plate against the records of his company’s car-park. If he remembered rightly, that particular case happened years ago, and nothing had come of that information anyway.

So why would James have kept it? And it wasn’t the only one, there were dozens of them, all requests that he had noted down for James and left on his desk (even now, he preferred writing notes to sending texts), some of them containing speculations or bets on the outcome, others reminding James about an after-work meet up at the pub or at his flat to discuss the day’s developments. Those notes looked like they had been read and re-read, the paper had gone soft and crumbly along the edges where they had been un-folded and folded up again.

None of the information was really useful, especially not now, years later, nothing that needed to be filed or recorded. None of it seemed important; however, if the notes hadn’t been important, James would not have kept them.

No, the only reason he could think of for James keeping hold of these notes was because… well, because _he_ had written them. For James, that alone made them worth keeping. The thought made him smile, warmed him with an emotion somewhere between amusement, chagrin and gratitude. 

Amusement because for all of James’s reticence and _utter bewilderment_ after Robbie had not only figured out the meaning behind James’s lingering looks but also realised that he would quite like to do something about them (“I had no reason to believe that you would… welcome my advances, sir.” “Give over, man, what am I, some sort of swooning Victorian maiden?") James had been the one hanging onto his letters like some sort of Austen heroine. Chagrin, because clearly he had been oblivious to James’s feelings for much longer than he had realised, and gratitude because James had been feeling this way for so long and yet he hadn’t blown his chance by _being_ oblivious. 

Some cases took longer than others, but he always made the evidence add up in the end. 

He lifted his head as he heard footsteps in the hallway, too late to pretend he hadn’t seen the letters. James hesitated at the door when he saw what Robbie had in his hand, but picked up the parcel tape from where they had left it on the windowsill and joined him on the floor.

There was an endearing flush to his cheeks when James quietly murmured, “I never meant for you to see those,” as he taped the box back together. Robbie could practically hear the swallowed ‘sir.’ He was working on breaking him of that habit. 

There were so many things he could say to that, several teasing responses, and ones more heartfelt and just plain _soppy_ than James probably realised he was capable of.

But he’d leave those for later. He just smiled at him and helped him pack all the papers away. When they were done, he reached out and gripped James’s arm. “Come on, soft lad,” he said, and his tone of voice made it nothing but an endearment. “Let’s get you settled.”

They packed the last of the boxes in the back of James’s car before setting off for his - their - new home.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt fill for cactusonastair over on LJ who requested Lewis/Hathaway and the trope 'I didn't mean for you to hear/see that!'


End file.
